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The denial of man-made global warming is one of the greatest PR campaigns in history. With echoes of the industry-funded research from tobacco companies that denied links between smoking and lung cancer, the well-coordinated PR plan has delayed new regulations for coal and petroleum industries and influenced millions of Americans.

In simple terms, man-made global warming can be described as “the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases,” according to NASA. “The most popular explanation for global warming is the burning of fossil fuels, mainly petroleum and coal, which produces carbon dioxide as one of the by-products. As of 2010, the concentration of carbon dioxide is about 50% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the late 1800's.”

Edge of Ice Shelf (Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video

The deniers have masterfully labeled themselves as “Pro-Business” and “Anti-Government” while painting their adversaries as meddling intellectuals and bureaucrats intent on imposing their unproven beliefs on everyone else.

It’s a well-funded group. Drexel University completed a study that concluded conservative foundations and others have bankrolled their case with $558 million between 2003 and 2010. "Money amplifies certain voices above others and, in effect, gives them a megaphone in the public square,” writes environmental scientist Robert J. Brulle, the study's author. “Powerful funders are supporting the campaign to deny scientific findings about global warming and raise public doubts about the roots and remedies of this massive global threat," the study noted.

The public relations tactics for the Deniers include:

Attacking the science of global warming

Attacking the motives of the scientists

Claiming the rise in earth’s temperatures are “natural”

Denying there is consensus among scientists

Claiming cleaner power plants would kill jobs

Making fun of former Vice President Al Gore, an expert on global warming

Convincing the media into conducting debates on “both sides of the issue.”

The Los Angeles Times noted the campaigns for climate change denial and the dangers of tobacco contain many similarities. “One early campaign was launched by tobacco companies. Seeking to prevent government regulation of its product, the American cigarette industry created the Council for Tobacco Research to generate research disputing the work of mainstream scientists. ‘Doubt is our product,’ said a 1969 industry memo, ‘since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public.’ Fighting regulation meant creating doubt about the health effects of smoking. The strategy proved enormously successful, helping prevent most regulation of tobacco products until 2009, nearly six decades after the carcinogenic properties of tobacco were established.”

TIME magazine chimed in about the forces who fund the denial. “Fossil-fuel companies like Exxon and Peabody Energy — which obviously have a business interest in slowing any attempt to reduce carbon emissions — have combined with traditionally conservative corporate groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and conservative foundations like the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, to raise doubts about the basic validity of what is, essentially, a settled scientific truth. That message gets amplified by conservative think tanks — like the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute — and then picked up by conservative media outlets on the Internet and cable TV.”

The results of these campaigns by the “pro-business” crowd have been to block laws that would require them to retrofit or modify their facilities or to pay additional taxes on pollution while promoting a sense of doubt in the public’s mind. Think of the strategy like a jury trial; if one juror votes “not guilty,” the defendant is not convicted.